Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using storage devices (also referred to as storage arrays) containing a plurality of host interface units (host adapters), disk drives, and disk interface units (disk adapters). Such storage devices are provided, for example, by EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass. and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,939 to Yanai et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,394 to Galtzur et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,147 to Vishlitzky et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,208 to Ofek, which are incorporated herein by reference. The host systems access the storage device through a plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide data and access control information through the channels of the storage device and the storage device provides data to the host systems also through the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives of the storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the host systems as a plurality of logical volumes. Different sections of the logical volumes may or may not correspond to the actual disk drives.
SAN characteristics of the storage devices and/or other elements of a storage area network (SAN) may be monitored according to different performance, capacity, topology and configuration data statistics and measures. SAN characteristics may include, for example, performance data, capacity data, discovery data, including configuration data and/or topology data, among other characteristics. As an example, performance characteristics of input/output (I/O) data paths among storage devices and components may be measured and may include I/O operations initiated by a host will result in corresponding activity in SAN fabric links, storage array ports and adapters, and storage volumes, measured in I/Os per second and Megabytes per second. Other characteristics may similarly be measured. Such characteristics may be significant factors in managing storage system performance, for example, in analyzing use of lowering access performance versus more expensive higher performance disk drives in a SAN, or by expanding number of SAN channels or channel capacity. Users may balance performance, capacity and costs when considering how and whether to replace and/or modify one or more storage devices or components.
Known performance characteristic collection techniques may include use of one or more agents installed on each of multiple sources in order to collect data for the multiple sources. For example, virtual hosts (e.g., hosts running as guest operating systems or virtual machines (VM's)) may be created in a cluster of physical hosts which rely for I/O transport on previously-created, or dynamically changing, I/O data paths. In various circumstances, the use of such agents for data collection may be intrusive and require significant use of computing resources.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system that may be advantageously used for data collection, particularly in connection with providing a flexible data collection mechanism that may facilitate a standardized mechanism for data collection among multiple sources.